[HN Gopher] Thousand-year-old mill has resumed production due to...
___________________________________________________________________
Thousand-year-old mill has resumed production due to demand for
flour
Author : rmason
Score : 146 points
Date : 2020-04-24 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foodandwine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foodandwine.com)
| TLightful wrote:
| Funny, as there is no shortage of bread on the supermarket
| shelves.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I think I read that only 4% of flour ends up in the shelves in
| normal times. Most of it goes direct to bakeries.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| people who are used to eating out have now bought a lot of grains
| and flour.
| rjpn wrote:
| why is this on HN?
| verytrivial wrote:
| Tangential: The mill a mile up the road from my house was was
| listed in the Doomsday Book in 1089AD (though has likely burnt
| down a few times.) And when "attached" the local cathedral it
| produced the original hot crossed buns. It was printed in a
| visitor centre leaflet so it must be true.
| pixxel wrote:
| Your comment and username are perfect.
| zabil wrote:
| I live in London, it's been four weeks since I last saw a pack of
| flour on the store shelf. The demand is that high.
| gmac wrote:
| If you need it, mills are selling it directly. I bought a 16kg
| bag of strong white and another of strong wholemeal for
| delivery from Marriages (flour.co.uk) this morning -- after a
| few hours of running a simple Bash script to poll occasionally
| and make a noise when the website no longer said 'out of
| stock'. Shipton Mill are also delivering if you can get a slot.
| lb1lf wrote:
| -Do you have yeast? Over on the other side of the North Sea,
| we've got more flour than we know what to do with on the
| shelves, as there is no yeast to be had - haven't seen a yeast
| cube in a month! (good thing sourdough is a thing!)
| zabil wrote:
| Yes! I managed to find a block of yeast last week. But, I
| can't use it as I got no flour :(
| benibela wrote:
| In Germany, I have flour, but no yeast
|
| I made a sourdough starter. It is kind of working, but some
| parts are tasting odd. There was also mold buildup at the
| margin
| lb1lf wrote:
| We need to talk, then. :)
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Get flour from Centralmilling company:
| https://centralmilling.com/store/
|
| Order a 50 lb sack and you're good to go. They still have
| it in stock.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Send me an email message, I can ship you some. I've got a
| kilo of SAF red and gold yeast, I can ship you 50g (or anyone
| on HN, feel free).
|
| Btw, you don't need much yeast - just use less than 0.5
| grams, let the dough rise for 8 hours at room temp. You can
| save that dough and continue making more bread from the
| culture.
| lb1lf wrote:
| -That's most kind of you, I really appreciate it - however,
| I do have a sourdough starter available and can (and do!)
| make all the bread we need - I was just amused at /our/
| supply chain having a flour surplus and no yeast, whereas
| in the UK it appeared to be the other way around...
| dageshi wrote:
| For most of the past month there's been neither in the
| UK. No flour, no yeast. In the past week flour has been
| on the shelves and not disappearing immediately, so I
| think demand has more or less been satiated, but no sign
| of yeast anywhere.
| ghaff wrote:
| Of course if you have baking soda and/or baking powder
| (depending on what you're making), there are a lot of quick
| breads, scones, biscuits, etc. that you can make without
| yeast. I'm doing both yeast and non-yeast baking. I do have a
| sourdough starter although I also have yeast which can make
| things a bit easier.
| gingericha wrote:
| For anyone looking for flour, here's a nice resource I found
| that lists local grains & flours. (It looks like they list a
| couple options in England. Truthfully though, I'm not sure how
| close they are to you).
|
| https://challengerbreadware.com/where-to-buy-grains-flours/
| sriram_sun wrote:
| Buy a mill folks! The one I bought for 10 years back cost me
| about $350. Steep, yes. Considering all that freshly ground flour
| in the proportions that I wanted, it was a no-brainer in
| hindsight. I cannot for the life of me find reasonably priced
| wheat kernels at this time. So paradoxically for the past 2
| months it has been sitting idle!
| bovermyer wrote:
| When I first read this, I somehow thought you meant an actual
| building, and not the in-home type. Must be the whole Friday
| evening thing.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I can't really understand how this is economical. After 10 days,
| they produced 200 3-lbs bags of flour. I don't know what they
| sell for but I can get flour in a supermarket for 30c/lbs so
| maybe 60c/lbs since its artisanal? So that's $360 out the door,
| but how much did you pay for the wheat itself, to the grocer(if
| not direct to consumer), and for operating the mill?
| pjc50 wrote:
| > I can get flour in a supermarket for 30c/lbs
|
| Per the rest of the thread: you can't get it at that price in
| the supermarket in a lot of places. There's an empty shelf with
| that price tag on.
| hinkley wrote:
| From what I understand, in at least some areas of the world the
| mill was a service model, not a manufacturing model.
|
| You'd bring your grain in, they would mill it, and keep a
| fraction of the product as a fee. Sure, they're still selling
| flour for goods and services, but it's a fraction of the volume
| versus buying grain and selling flour.
|
| The overhead is tiny, but the distribution area is, too.
| londons_explore wrote:
| In 10 days of operation, they have 200 3lb bags of flour.
|
| Each would be worth $1.50 in walmart, and due to anti price-
| gouging laws, it would be illegal to charge more than that.
|
| So after 10 days operating, with presumably at least a few people
| on-site, they have produced goods which can sell for $300, or a
| revenue of $30 per day.
|
| I think this is more a publicity excercise than a commercial
| operation...
| sio8ohPi wrote:
| Price gouging laws won't generally prevent them from continuing
| to sell at the price they've been selling at. It's fancy
| artisanal flour with a story, so they charge twice that for a
| bag. [1]
|
| [1]: https://sturminsternewton-museum.co.uk/theme-
| content/uploads...
| ghaff wrote:
| $1/pound or so is pretty typical for even relatively mass-
| market "artisanal" flours in the US. That's about what Bob's
| Red Mill and King Arthur go for. (For their regular white
| flour. More specialty items are more.)
| ctdonath wrote:
| Walmart sells premium flour (which this limited production
| product would count as) for much more than $1.50.
|
| And it's something for the limited staff to do while otherwise
| unemployed.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Holy crap - what information do you have about these people
| that makes you think they are engaging in a publicity exercise,
| rather than simply _trying to help_?
| josinalvo wrote:
| The useful content of his(her?) reply is that the so called
| "price gouging laws" can not only have good effects, but also
| bad ones.
|
| This flour could be selling higher, and creating more
| incentive to produce.
|
| But I agree, that publicity stunt bit is needlessly agressive
| throwaway373438 wrote:
| The information we have is the scale of their operation.
|
| If they were trying to get flour to people in the most
| efficient way possible they'd be using that manpower to
| repackage from wholesale distributors. There's no shortage of
| flour milling capacity -- the shortages are distribution
| related.
|
| This is touched on in the article.
|
| As it stands, they're really producing a negligible amount of
| flour. A nice gesture, but not the kind of thing you'd do if
| you're earnestly trying to address a problem. It's very
| clearly a stunt -- not that there's anything wrong with that.
| floatrock wrote:
| > millers Pete Loosmore and Imogen Bittner decided that, due
| to the current demand for flour and the loss of income from
| visitors, this would be a good time to re-embrace the mill's
| commercial production capabilities.
|
| I mean, I wouldn't call it a publicity exercise, but they
| quite explicitly say they need to make up for lost tourism
| income. Call it an operational pivot.
|
| The lesson here is it's good to have a diversity of
| offerings. Some of their budget probably comes from historic
| site funds and maybe they also offer weddings or events, but
| the point is there certainly is a commercial interest in
| this.
| qqssccfftt wrote:
| When your brain is so poisoned by capitalism you think that
| there is nothing other than either making a big profit or
| virtue signalling.
| timthorn wrote:
| This is a heritage charity and most certainly not a commercial
| operation. There are many old mills around the UK, many still
| in working order, of multiple types.
|
| Most are registered with the SPAB:
| https://www.spab.org.uk/mills
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| _" Each would be worth $1.50 in walmart"_
|
| This is stoneground flour produced in small batches which will
| almost certainly be sold at a premium price. Flour in the UK is
| commonly sold in 1 or 1.5kg packets in supermarkets and this
| would be priced anything from PS2.00 to PS4.00 ($2.5 to $5 /
| EUR2.3 to 4.6)
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Is it really legal to sell stoneground flour in Britain or on
| the continent in this day and age? It is known from both
| archaeological excavations and studies of Third World
| populations that tiny little bits of the millstone flake off
| into ground flour, and gradually, over time, these stone
| fragments cause severe damage to people's teeth. I would have
| imagined that there would already be legislation to require
| the use of metal milling.
| starmftronajoll wrote:
| Yes. This is a charming story of kindness, community, and
| cultural heritage. It is not a business story.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Not that there aren't serious questions, but it's common for
| prototypes and early production runs to easily cost 100x vs
| optimized production runs.
|
| And if it's meeting a need, I would suggest that the immediate
| cost isn't the primary concern or benefit here.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I suspect they were selling it for a higher price before the
| emergency as a souveneir.
| tomxor wrote:
| Thankfully this is in a tiny village in beautiful Dorset,
| England with a modest local population, and no there is no
| Walmart... so none of that applies.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Nor do we have price gouging laws.
| rjsw wrote:
| Technically there is Walmart in Dorset. Walmart owns the Asda
| supermarket chain and there are branches in the larger towns
| in Dorset.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| At the moment, they have been trying to offload it for some
| time.
| tomxor wrote:
| There is no asda in Sturminster Newton... even if there
| were US consumer law does not apply.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fascinating. Another example of the HN community's "Assume Bad
| Faith" in action. If I had to come up with a list of values for
| this community based on popular comments, I think it's a photo
| finish for the top between:
|
| * Assume Bad Faith
|
| * Be Pessimistic
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| I know what you're saying but it's not HN, just a sizeable
| minority of misery-guts who can't tolerate success or decency
| in others.
|
| And if I may add another bullet point to yours
|
| + It's all hopeless so why bother trying to change it.
| polynomial wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how is gouging calculated relative to profit?
| At one point does profit become gouging?
| hinkley wrote:
| No, in 10 days they have _sold_ 200 bags of flour.
|
| > In its first fully functional 10-day period, _they milled a
| ton of wheat_ ; under normal circumstances, that would've been
| a year's worth. As a result, it has already been able to
| deliver 200 three-pound bags of flour to local stores and
| bakeries.
|
| Assume that the ramp up was bumpy. Maybe they can do half a ton
| a day (5x), and they have >3x as much product as they've
| sold... they _might_ be able to do $500 a day until the
| equipment breaks down. For a tourist trap that could be pretty
| respectable.
| blihp wrote:
| I think it's more a public service that _happens_ to provide
| some publicity rather than the other way around. People want
| /need flour right now with various supply chain issues, and
| this mill can help produce some locally. Of course it makes no
| business sense (which is probably why the mill shut down 50
| years ago)... that's not the immediate issue.
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Anti price gouging likely won't come into play here.
| flatline wrote:
| Opening this page pegged one processor in firefox :/
| tomxor wrote:
| Something very daft going on inside a requestAnimationFrame
| loop causing lots of css style re-computation with no
| discernible affect, pretty sad.
| jvm_ wrote:
| We've moved into a real-world board game. This tile over here has
| wheat, if you go get it and then move to this tile, you can
| process it and gain bread - but your bread resource declines by 1
| loaf per day.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I had no idea about the businesses that are part of this word
| until we had to start hunting for bread flour and ended up
| finding:
|
| 1/ our city has an industrial wheat varietal breeder that makes a
| novel new brand based on Paragon,
|
| 2/ it also happens to be grown on an organic farm just west of
| us,
|
| 3/ and is milled and distributed by a nationwide famous windmill
| about 20 minutes to the north east.
|
| It's a whole little world of actually quite new tech in the area
| I had no idea existed, with this weird overlap with technology
| hundreds and thousands of years old.
| frandroid wrote:
| Which city is this? I'd read this article/blog post...
| dv_dt wrote:
| I wish there were a commerce directory that would enable search
| and discovery for local businesses like this.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Instagram unlocked a lot of stuff here, though tbh it was
| mostly chatting with people on insta messaging rather than
| any kind of open discovery.
| frandroid wrote:
| Something printed on yellow paper, maybe!
| dv_dt wrote:
| You jest, the yellow pages online are a travesty of
| interface woes, but I guess I was able to enter flour and a
| number of companies did come up.
|
| But I think they are missing out on listings for products,
| resource, or manufacturing inputs & waste connecting angle
| that would be really interesting. The best thing they have
| is maybe industry category keywords.
| rhizome wrote:
| The entire business model of the Yellow Pages is to sell
| entries to businesses, and any value you get out of that
| is (at least) secondary. It's basically a gym
| subscription model, except its hosting costs and transit
| that eat into their profits. Just like the most
| profitable way to run a gym is to sell subscriptions to
| people who never visit.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Thomas Register perhaps? https://www.thomasnet.com/
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Suggested title:
|
| Thousand-Year-Old Mill Producing Flour for First Time in 50 Years
| Due to Demand
| schnevets wrote:
| How about:
|
| Thousand-Year-Old Mill Producing Flour for First Time in 50
| Years Due to Inability for Supply Chains to Divert Product from
| Shut-Down Commercial Buyers to Personal Customers
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Does anyone know why it is such a problem for our supply
| chain to shift from commercial buyers to consumers?
|
| I imagine there are people out there willing to buy in
| commercial sizes, if packaging is the problem...
| peterwwillis wrote:
| The short answer is "because logistics".
| schnevets wrote:
| This is the best response. I like highlighting that this
| is a logistics problem, because humanity has become more
| adept at solving logistics issues since the start of the
| 21st century.
|
| I feel like people are becoming increasingly fatalistic
| about challenges like overpopulation while we have tools
| to help fix these problems that didn't exist 20 years
| ago. Yes, the world is changing at a speed that makes
| people uneasy, but the world that emerges out of this
| could be more resilient, better fed, and more
| environmentally sound as long as we continue to solve
| problems.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Can you share some of the advances in logistics since
| 2000?
|
| We've had shipping containers for a few decades before
| that, trucks and pipelines and so on.
|
| What's new?
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Right, but I'm very interested to learn the details of
| what specifically was the logistics problem. Do you have
| some insight you can share?
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I have factory that turns big bags of flour to small bags
| of flour.
|
| Demand increases overnight.
|
| I attempt to keep up. I order more bags which takes non-0
| time to be fulfilled. My machines physically cannot bag
| much faster.
|
| Boom, shortage
| bragh wrote:
| I'm from Estonia, the usual problem when it came to
| industrial goods was that consumers don't have a VAT ID and
| are protected by Consumer Protection and Technical
| Regulatory Authority. In B2B, companies need to handle
| problems between themselves, so that means the need to
| offer 2 years of warranty per EU laws to consumers,
| labeling and instruction manual in Estonian and probably
| much more that I can't remember.
|
| But given these times, it's not a problem: I already know
| of at least 2 wholesale food suppliers who opened up their
| ordering systems to be used for B2C.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Supposedly a problem in Canada was bags.
|
| Dunno why it took them so long to start shipping them in
| plainer bags though.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/robin-hood-flour-baking-
| yel...
|
| Would prefer to pay a few cents less for all my goods
| instead of advertising for the product I just bought in my
| own home.
| timthorn wrote:
| But it's not producing for the first time in 50 years - it's
| just producing full time, whereas previously it was milling on
| a demonstration basis.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Ah - unfortunately I can't think of a more concise way to put
| it than the article does: "Back In The Flour Business".
| aazaa wrote:
| Those talking about the economics appear to live in areas with
| abundant flour.
|
| In many places in the US at least, it's very difficult to find
| any. It has been this way for weeks. Supermarkets get it and it
| flies off the shelves.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Where are you? At the big stores in Brooklyn for a while there
| was no flour. But now going to smaller stores I see it no
| problem. Seems like less of a shortage issue than just that
| most folks in my area are all inefficiently picking their
| grocery store.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| In Columbus, Ohio here. Last week was the first time we have
| had flour back on the shelves and the types were limited.
| Still haven't seen any yeast available.
| anoraca wrote:
| Maybe ask a local bakery or pizza shop.
| ddoolin wrote:
| Newport Beach, CA here and it's been off the shelf for
| awhile but also recently popped back up, along with other
| essentials like the infamous toilet paper.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't need any more so haven't made a real study but I'd
| note that both King Arthur and Bob's Red Mill are out of
| their main products online. (But they're somewhat artisan so
| they probably have more capacity constraints than the bigger
| players do.)
| lostapathy wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is because they are out vs it's
| just a lot more efficient to send it by the pallet to
| grocers instead of one bag at a time to end users.
|
| I've seen this in other industries too - manufacturers will
| sell retail direct when times are "normal" because it's
| easy profit and they can fulfill out of "slack in the
| system". But when demand skyrockets they lack the slack
| energy to deal with retail-direct, so they just send
| everything through distribution.
| r0m4n0 wrote:
| Yea I live in NYC (fidi) and also been having problems
| finding flour. I can't necessarily travel long distances to
| different grocery stores because I don't want to ride the
| subway etc. The grocery stores around me don't have it and
| haven't had luck with delivery.
|
| Last week finally got costco to deliver a 50lb bag which is
| apparently all they have at the moment...
|
| But I think I agree with you, it's less of a true shortage
| and more of a supply chain to certain stores issue. Are we
| really consuming more flour at this point or are we just
| throwing all these established supply chains to completely
| restructure?
| m-i-l wrote:
| In the UK, according to various sources including the BBC[0],
| there is plenty of flour, but one of the main problems is that
| most of the production lines are geared up to producing large
| e.g. 25kg sacks, given 96% of sales are to bulk buyers for
| trades like bakeries, with only 4% of flour sold direct to
| consumers in retail outlets in small 1kg or 1.5kg bags. I'd
| imagine it might not be dissimilar in many other countries too.
| So in the UK you should no problem buying a 25kg sack of flour
| from a wholesaler. There are actually lots of companies who
| specialise in providing food in wholesale quantities to places
| like schools and restaurants, most of whoch are in difficulty
| given their market has disappeared, although some are now
| temporarily selling to the general public to try to stay
| afloat[1]. I feel like I've learned an unexpectedly large
| amount about supply chains in recent weeks.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52212760
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52066764
| gingericha wrote:
| >... one of the main problems is that most of the production
| lines are geared up to producing large e.g. 25kg sacks, given
| 96% of sales are to bulk buyers for trades like bakeries,
| with only 4% of flour sold direct to consumers in retail
| outlets in small 1kg or 1.5kg bags.
|
| For anyone who's interested, The Indicator podcast by Planet
| Money briefly touches on this point in their most recent
| episode on potatoes in the US.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843437140/the-great-potato-
| gi...
| peeters wrote:
| In Canada, there have been supply shortages but according to
| Robin Hood (major Canadian flour producer), the supply issues
| are both at the endpoint (grocery stores not stocking enough)
| as well as in secondary products, e.g. they cite that there's a
| lack of packaging, but that their flour supply is healthy.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/robin-hood-flour-baking-yel...
|
| That said regions will obviously vary. Canada is a major wheat
| producer.
| rhizome wrote:
| In other words, supply-chain problems just like we're seeing
| in many other segments: paper products, sanitizer,
| rice/beans, etc.
| Mirioron wrote:
| This is another example of our economy being so
| interconnected that it's really hard to tell what is and
| isn't essential. If you lack enough "non-essential" goods for
| your business, then your business doesn't work either. I just
| hope that the businesses relying on machines for their output
| aren't reliant on some obscure parts that will be impossible
| to source if they break.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| This is an opportunity to reduce use of one-use packaging.
| Simply ship the flour in a gaylord to the point of
| distribution and have people bring their own canisters, tare
| them, and fill them.
| goodside wrote:
| When the virus persists for days on most surfaces and
| everyone is required to wear disposable gloves, customers
| bringing their own reusable bags has never been less
| appealing than it is right now.
|
| NYC (coincidentally) banned single-use plastic bags a week
| or so before the COVID-19 outbreak, and it was quickly
| reversed on sanitation grounds.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know if it's statewide but all my local stores in
| Massachusetts have banned bringing in reusable bags.
| goodside wrote:
| "Eco-friendly" reusable bags are also made from non-woven
| polypropylene, which is now in short supply as it's
| essential for producing N95 filters, surgical masks, and
| hospital-grade fabrics like gowns and pillow cases.
| xkapastel wrote:
| I live in NYC and they still do not give us plastic bags
| anymore. Was this ban really "reversed"? I've been using
| reusable bags for the whole pandemic, and a quick google
| tells me the enforcement has been postponed, not that the
| ban was reversed.
| goodside wrote:
| You're correct it was delayed rather than reversed, but
| it has so far been delayed three times -- first April,
| then May, and now June. Retailers have filed lawsuits
| against the ban that the court system has no capacity to
| deal with, so it's not likely to be enforced (or formally
| reversed) until the outbreak subsides.
|
| I live in Brooklyn and still get plastic bags at three
| different grocery stores I can think of. There was a week
| or two that many switched to paper, so you may be seeing
| paper-only bags from stores that have unused stock to go
| through.
|
| Separately, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Massachusetts
| have specifically banned the use of reusable shopping
| bags in grocery stores state-wide. San Francisco has as
| well.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > This is an opportunity to reduce use of one-use
| packaging. Simply ship the flour in a gaylord to the point
| of distribution and have people bring their own canisters,
| tare them, and fill them.
|
| One of the first things to go at our local grocery stores
| were bulk-binned products that weren't fresh produce.
| They've also banned reusable shopping bags. I don't anyone
| is going to try an idea like yours soon.
| ghaff wrote:
| This is almost certainly not the time for that. Stores have
| eliminated a lot of their self-serve stations and even deli
| counters and the like.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| The bulk bins are still open in my neighborhood.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I like this model, and this is how I normally buy my flour,
| but since this pandemic started, my bulk goods store no
| longer allows you to bring in containers or scoop your own
| goods - a staff member escorts you around the store and
| scoops what you want into plastic bags. Works alright,
| though it's a bit less convenient to estimate the amount of
| their bags that I need to fit my containers.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > That said regions will obviously vary. Canada is a major
| wheat producer.
|
| Mildly interesting number I worked out the other day: Canada
| produces about enough wheat for 2000 Calories/day for 80
| million people. (With a population of ~38m.)
| morley wrote:
| It seems so bizarre that so much flour is being consumed now.
| Are people hoarding it, or would this demand otherwise have
| been met from restaurants?
| peeters wrote:
| I think it's more that people are going from purchasing fresh
| bread to purchasing the ingredients for fresh bread.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Yes, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of bread on the
| shelves although if you only shop once a week it might not
| last.
| Mtinie wrote:
| A spike in demand for ingredients used to make baked goods.
| People have the time now to experiment with things they
| previously had an interest in but not enough motivation to
| see it through.
| empath75 wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2296/
| crazygringo wrote:
| Baking at home has skyrocketed. When you're bored it's an
| easy, family-friendly rewarding way to spend a couple hours.
|
| Think about how often people bake normally. Not often. Now
| it's all the time.
|
| Same reason why eggs and vanilla are also harder to find in
| some places.
| buerkle wrote:
| Homemade vanilla takes a few months but it's easy and
| tastes fantastic. Some vanilla beans with some vodka or
| rum.
| ghaff wrote:
| Eggs seem to be pretty much back in stock where I live
| though they were scarce for a while. With eggs, it may not
| be baking so much (and you mostly don't even use them with
| yeast bread). But you've got whole families at home and I
| imagine there are a lot more hot breakfasts going on which
| can chew up egg stocks pretty quickly.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| This was true for us. I live with my fiance and we
| started cooking an omlette to be split between us every
| morning since this started. At three eggs a morning we
| can go through a dozen every 4 days. At one point we were
| trying to skip a trip to the store so I made a batch of
| black beans that we were eating for breakfast with
| tortillas and fresh cilantro.
|
| Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only
| get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and
| usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. So you
| can ask for all the ingredients for a complete meal plan
| and wind up with all the vegetables and a little meat but
| nothing else. Or you get shorted on other aspects of the
| pickup(this is just a bare statement of fact). We gave up
| and just went into the store with homemade PPE.
|
| I do think this situation is revealing just how fragile
| our system of just-in-time delivery and globalization is.
| For things like N95 masks national borders are very real,
| and being dependent on China for everything in the US is
| really really bad.
|
| It's also highlighting for me how important it is to know
| how to cook and be fluent in different kinds of cooking
| besides the standard American diet. When this first
| started the store shelves were picked clean of anything
| that most people recognize as nonperishable food. So I
| grabbed things like textured vegetable protein and
| millet. The shortages are really only a problem if you
| don't cook from first principles or don't have much
| experience with spices or other sources of flavor.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only
| get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and
| usually it's the sundries that get knocked out.
|
| Making a grocery store run about once a week (earlyish AM
| on a weekday) is one of the few compromises I've been
| making to just staying on my own property or adjacent
| basically unused forest trails. And the reason is as you
| say. I find a lot of real-time adjustments are still
| needed depending upon what's in stock.
| polynomial wrote:
| GP was asking if the assertion is being made that overall
| _aggregate_ demand has increased, and if so why.
|
| ie. if people are baking more and buying bread less.
| aianus wrote:
| I doubt that much more flour is being consumed.
|
| It's probably all logistics and supply chain issues because
| everything was geared towards delivering 1000lb loads of
| flour to a bakery instead of 100 x 10 lbs bags of flour to
| the grocery store.
| vkou wrote:
| People used to buy bread every few days, or go out to eat
| sandwiches, pizza, etc.
|
| Now, my bread purchases have gone to zero (Since we go
| shopping every few weeks, and have no room, or interest in
| freezing bread.) I'm not eating out.
|
| My net consumption of flour probably hasn't changed much, but
| my _purchases_ of flour have gone up, dramatically.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| In a lot of countries villagers plant their own wheat, mill it
| and bake bread for the entire year. Others buy 50-80lbs bags of
| wheat. Wheat is great for hard times, it fills your stomach and
| relatively cheap. It's a peace of mind as well, no matter what
| happens we have something
| devmunchies wrote:
| So much flour will sit in people's pantry and go bad, never
| opened.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| That is my worry as well. people who are used to eating out
| have now bought a lot of grains and flour. they would just sit
| in their pantries when they start eating out again. ironically,
| those who eat out would not be able to estimate what they need.
| the poor would be paying for the ensuing shortage
| unfortunately.
| jetrink wrote:
| A lot of people I know are getting into baking their own bread
| right now. Sourdough seems to be particularly popular. I would
| guess that most people are buying the flour to use it, not to
| hoard it.
| Shivetya wrote:
| I go the whole wheat route (hard red mostly) and that keeps in
| a sealed container nearly forever. I have had good luck with
| regular flour simply by keeping it in an old glass canister
| set. Honey of course keeps just fine when kept out of the light
| and also sealed.
|
| many people let the humidity in their homes get too high and
| don't transfer some baking products to more appropriate
| containers than the simple paper bags mass packaging uses.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| I thought this when I realized just how much flour was in the
| 25 lb bag I bought, but if you make a habit of baking even once
| a week, you end up going through it pretty quickly.
| vkou wrote:
| My wife and I have gone through more flour in the last two
| months than we have in the past five years. We've probably
| used 20 lbs of it, already.
|
| Edit: We, of course, could not find any at the groceries, as
| of a few weeks ago. So, instead of buying two ten-pound bags,
| since none were available, we went to a restaurant supply
| store, to buy a fifty-pound bag... There were no lines, no
| shortage of product on the shelves, and if they sold it in
| smaller portions, we would have happily bought less.
|
| On the bright side, we are now a strategic flour reserve for
| our friends and relatives.
| kaybe wrote:
| That's the thing though, at least here there is no general
| shortage of flour, but there _is_ a shortage of small 1-kg
| packages, while the demand for large bags has gone down.
| Some local bakeries made their own smaller batches for sale
| as a result.
| favorited wrote:
| If you're buying in industrial portions, you should
| consider freezing it in batches to kill any weevil eggs.
|
| The larger of a batch you have, the more likely there are
| eggs in there. Most bakers, pizzerias, etc. will use the
| flour fast enough that they won't hatch, but a home baker
| might not be so lucky...
|
| https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-store-flour-1389337
| MereInterest wrote:
| Exactly. My usual weekly recipe uses about 850-900 grams of
| flour, so I go through a 25 pound bag every 3 months or so.
| This has been roughly consistent for the past 2 years.
| remmargorp64 wrote:
| I personally bought 200 lbs of flour from a mill (they only
| sold 50 lb bags, and I needed a couple of different types of
| flour to do the different baking projects I wanted to do).
|
| Each bag was around $30. With shipping and handling, the grand
| total came to around $200 total.
|
| I've already made 6 pizzas, 8 loaves of sourdough bread, 3
| cakes, and 4 batches of cookies. I've been baking about two new
| loaves of sourdough every week.
|
| When you consider that a single pizza order for delivery
| typically costs around $30 after tip and your typical artisanal
| bread loaf at the store is around $5, my flour has already paid
| for itself, and I still have months of flour left (assuming I
| keep baking 2 loaves every week).
|
| I would agree with you, though. Many people probably aren't
| actually using their flour and baking goods they have been
| hoarding (beyond making a couple of things).
|
| For me, though, baking has essentially turned into my hobby.
|
| $200 to fund an entire hobby that will keep me entertained (and
| and my little family fed) for months? Not the worst $200 I have
| spent, that's for sure.
| noughtme wrote:
| As someone who does bake bread every week, this has been super
| annoying. It is true that more people are taking up baking, but
| a lot of this is panic buying. My 30-40 year old friends have
| all admitted that they immediately purchased 2 bags of flour
| that remain unopened. Bakeries remain open and supermarket
| bread aisles are full. Most people with young kids have not
| suddenly started baking bread everyday.
| Theodores wrote:
| I am like you - under normal circumstances flour is a staple,
| although I cheat by using a bread making machine. I don't
| have a car and flour plus a machine means I can have fresh
| bread, not stale bought stuff. Normally I buy 3kg at most in
| a week with a stockpile of less than that. So the current
| situation is annoying.
|
| However, think of the OCD crew that are normally the only
| ones buying hand sanitizer. Us flour buyers can improvise
| with store bread but the OCD people must have had it hard
| when their essentials of hand sanitizer and toilet paper
| vanished from the aisles.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. At my local grocery stores, there's never been any
| material shortage of bread. There hasn't even really been a
| lack of choice from mass market stuff to what at least passes
| for artisanal by supermarket standards. I have been baking
| (more than usual) at home but there's no shortage of
| breadstuffs in the supermarket if you'd rather buy. (TBH,
| bread has been more consistently in-stock than a lot of
| product categories.)
| exolymph wrote:
| Do you not grasp that having flour around provides
| optionality that your friends didn't previously have?
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Yes, but there's a tragedy of the commons effect here.
| Mirioron wrote:
| The preparations are unnecessary until they suddenly aren't.
| If you wait until bakeries close and supermarket bread aisles
| are empty, then it's too late.
|
| This is like having backups and disaster recovery in IT. You
| spend resources on it, but get nothing in return. That one
| time things do go wrong though it can literally save your
| business and you'll be happy to have had backups and recovery
| in place.
|
| I think that people's fears of a lack of food in first world
| countries are overblown, but people are still afraid.
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| While I agree with you about the necessity, I don't think
| people are really doing much to actually solve a potential
| problem either. If we really get to the point that bakeries
| and supermarkets are out of bread and other reasonably
| convenient staples, you having bought flour in a moment of
| panic is of little comfort. There's more to the equation,
| and generally I feel that if people weren't comfortably
| ready for this 2 years ago, they won't be remotely ready in
| 2 days.
|
| So let's say things have collapsed to the point that all
| the bakeries or supply chains leading to you are now out of
| commission. It's time to bake bread and you have flour. Do
| you have yeast and other ingredients already? They're
| already in shortages too. Is your water service and
| electricity / gas still working? Do you have experience
| baking bread, or access to a recipe book, or is your
| Internet service provider still operating? Okay - let's say
| the bread supply has collapsed completely and all of these
| things are still working out for you - great - you can bake
| some bread! But honestly, even that's pretty lucky. You
| might be eating cold gruel with water from the creek, if
| you even know that's a thing.
|
| But wait! There's more! All the supply chains near you have
| just collapsed. Everyone's going hungry once they've gone
| through their 2 (or 0) bags of flour. Is your house about
| to be looted? Can you secure it? Are the phones and police
| dispatch still working? Do you have anything else to eat
| with your week's supply of bread? Are you even
| _emotionally_ prepared for what life is like now if things
| are getting this bad and you just now decided to have some
| extra flour on hand? Wait - is that a fever and non-
| productive cough you 're starting to feel? What are you
| wiping your ass with!?
|
| If all you have in mind is last-minute hoarding of a few
| staples, you're contributing to a wider short-term problem
| and your staples won't keep you sane and healthy very long.
| If you're bored in quarantine, now's a good time to start
| planning to be more prepared and self-sufficient for the
| next event.
| rjsw wrote:
| Particularly since it is really hard to find yeast for sale.
| phillc73 wrote:
| Drink Weissbier and harvest it yourself from the bottom of
| the bottles.
| vkou wrote:
| You can raise your own yeast + bacteria mix by following a
| recipe for making starter. As long as you wash your hands
| well before working with it, and are willing to wait a few
| weeks for it to establish, it's difficult to screw it up.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Based on...? It may do nothing but drive down future demand as
| people use up what they have.
| blihp wrote:
| The reality that many people buying it don't know how to
| cook, let alone bake. I'd bet that most of the people
| clearing out the baking aisles are doing so as an insurance
| policy (i.e. buy the raw materials now 'just in case' and
| learn how to use them later, if needed. _Maybe_ , if they
| have kids they're baking some cookies.) The crisis will pass
| with the majority of the flour purchased just going bad.
|
| Regarding driving down future demand: not likely more than in
| the very short term... flour has a fairly short shelf life.
| Have you ever used/tasted rancid flour? While it's not the
| end of the world, it's not something most people are likely
| to want use in a recipe more than once given a choice.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > The reality that many people buying it don't know how to
| cook, let alone bake.
|
| Based on?
|
| > not likely
|
| Again, based on what? Your intuition? You have some data
| correlating flour purchases with people unable to bake (and
| apparently unmotivated to use a search engine or read
| expiration dates)?
|
| Storing flour in a sealed container extends its lifespan.
| Freezing it even more so. Anyone can easily learn these
| facts if so motivated.
| fock wrote:
| I really think there's a lot of stuff easier to prepare
| and of much better nutritional value you can put in a
| freezer (which generally only works until power runs
| out). But hey, let's buy 100lbs of flour and put it in a
| freezer because we can do that....
| blihp wrote:
| Based on a lifetime of anecdotal evidence and the
| application of logic and common sense. Not everything in
| this world requires citing references and applying the
| scientific method.
| devmunchies wrote:
| OP here. based on me owning a cookie company that makes
| thousands of cookies a week and being _plugged-in_ because it
| 's my industry. I ask people. many haven't used flour they've
| bought yet.
|
| There are lots of people using flour who didn't before, but
| lots of it is going to go to waste.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| It can be stored in the freezer.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Or any other cool dry place that is safe from insects.
|
| I'm keeping my freezer space for the stuff that actually goes
| bad.
| nomel wrote:
| And moisture. Some of the molds that can grow on flour are
| carcinogenic and/or extremely toxic.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Cool dry place ;)
|
| But ya, aflatoxins are nothing to mess around with.
| mceachen wrote:
| TIL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin
| vkou wrote:
| If I were hoarding food, flour would be just about the last
| thing that I would devote freezer space to...
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